Seussian Savories + Gorey-esque Goosebumps

Green Oats + The Girls

Read

The Girls by John Bowen, pub. 1986
Buy: Bookshop.org or your local bookshop

Sometimes you need a book to uproot you out of your reading patterns (mine: domesticity, inner female worlds, family sagas, British countryside / garden porn, artistic memoir). A book that’s semi-out of your comfort zone but not so out that you’re alienated. A book that gently presses on the potential of fear (thrill, even) without delving so far in that you’re in horror territory. Fact: I fear horror! I love a mystery or thriller but get spooked pretty easily these days. So when The Girls came across my desk (jk, I found it at Point Reyes Books) and I saw the blurb on back (‘A wry, macabre tale of simple country living, brutal murder, and a reasonably happy couple.’), I had a feeling it would hit that perfect, hard-to-find place between sinister and soft. Plus, full disclosure, it takes place in the British countryside, features a queer couple and there are many mentions of flowers, so it’s not that far out of left field. Sometimes you need flowers to balance out the homicide, okay?! 

John Bowen was a queer British playwright and author who, in the foreward, tells us that he based the book’s setting on his own hometown of Tysoe, England, and the girls’ house on his actual house! That explains the immediate intimacy I felt when introduced to the village where The Girls takes place, the description of the house and its grounds, and the various colorful characters that pepper the pages. The year is 1975 and the girls are Jan and Susan, two lesbians living and working together (though no one in the town speaks of or acknowledges their romance, with the exception of their non-judgmental, protective and tight-lipped housekeeper, Miss Marshall). Susan is about a decade younger than Jan; the two of them run a local shop where they sell various homemade crafts and gifts: sheep’s milk cheese they make in their dairy, smocks they sew themselves, honey from their bees, preserves from their garden. Basically my ideal store.

Susan is a bit sheltered and lost, plus has less life experience than Jan; Jan is strong-willed and self-assured. Their relationship is sweet and loving, their life fairly idyllic. Then Susan abruptly decides she needs a month away to find herself. During that month, both parties are distraught and lonely. Jan meets a man at a craft fair, sleeps with him in the back of a van and gets pregnant (all of this is explained on the inner front cover so I’m not spoiling anything). Susan returns and Jan tells her they’re going to have a baby. Bowen’s narration is what makes the story so fun – simultaneously straightforward and tongue-in-cheek. It’s a given that the girls will have the child, and assumed that they’ll never tell the father, a rabbit-like man named Alan. Neither Jan nor Susan ever doubts the decision to have the baby, Susan just barely balking at the mention of Jan sleeping with a man. It’s simply accepted that this baby is theirs. Nine months later, Susan gives birth to Butch (aka ‘Butchles’). The girls delight in his every action and never leave his side. 

Life goes on. Seeds are sowed, plums are harvested. Then Alan pays an unexpected visit, and, as Charlotte York once famously quipped, ‘Something bad happened.’ The rest of the novel follows the girls as they cover their tracks in order to maintain their peaceful life and protect their boy. Bowen is a genius at keeping you on your toes while also calming your nerves: His writing is light-footed and full of irony. Sure, a life has been lost, but there’s cheese to make, babies to placate and craft fairs to attend! Nothing that bad can happen when you trust your author to come through with levity. I couldn’t put this one down and am so happy it’s been reissued. 

Eat

I feel like the Oat Board owes me some money, because I can’t stop eating them or talking about them. I’m slightly obsessed with the fact that our bodies literally send us signals to feed ourselves warm, nourishing foods as the weather cools. At present I’m 50% ginger tea and 50% oats. I’ve loved and prosthelytized savory oats for many moons. If you haven’t ever stirred miso into your oatmeal, is it rude to say you haven’t lived? Last year I was thumbing through recipes for a dinner party and stumbled upon Bryant Terry’s green rice, wherein you puree spinach, kale, stock and coconut milk and use it to cook a verdant meal. I futzed with the recipe a bunch because I wanted to make congee (and I wanted to simplify it), and the results were spot-on. A few nights ago, fretting about what I was going to include for today’s recipe, I literally woke up at 3 a.m. with an idea, emailed myself (subject line ‘green oats’) and promptly went back to bed. (This is normal behavior in my world.) The idea is the same as the congee but cuts down the cooking time so you can have a steamy, dreamy, green-ass bowl of oats in about 25 minutes. I’m totally obsessed with this recipe and am going to put it on rotation, hoping the Oat Board surprises me with one of those massive checks while I nibble.

A woman cannot survive on oats alone, so I implore you to add toppings! Ideas include: 7-minute egg (always), fried shallots, sliced scallions, toasted coconut, roasted mushrooms, chile oil.

Green Oats
Makes 1 small serving, with leftover broth

For the broth:
11 ounces purified water
2 tablespoons full-fat coconut milk (I love Aroy-D)
1 cup tightly packed spinach
Hearty pinch Kosher salt

For the oats:
1 cup green broth, divided
¼ cup oats (not quick-cooking)

Pour the water and coconut milk into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Tip the spinach into the bowl of a blender. Pour the boiling liquid over the spinach, add the salt and puree til smooth (boiling the liquid keeps the spinach bright). Taste: It should be savory and slightly salty; you should want to drink it (I have). Now add the oats and about ½ cup of the green broth back to the saucepan and bring to a simmer. I like to stir this pretty frequently; it’s calming and you can control it better. Add more liquid as the oats start sticking to the pan. By the end you should’ve used about 1 cup. The whole process should take about 25 minutes. (You can probably add the whole cup of liquid at once, but I haven’t tried it so let me know if you go that route!) Add your toppings and serve.